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TELEVISION;A Bold Old Hand Reshapes CBS News

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
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O.K., HERE WE GO," whispers Andrew Heyward as the moment of truth arrives promptly at 6:30, with Dan Rather beginning his delivery of "The CBS Evening News." Mr. Heyward is in the program's main control room at CBS's broadcast center on West 57th Street in Manhattan, just a few feet from the command post where the executive producer, Jeffrey Fager, is cuing Mr. Rather.

Mr. Heyward, who sat in Mr. Fager's chair until three months ago, when he was named president of CBS News, is the only person in this frantic cockpit with nothing much to do. These days, he usually watches the program back in his office with other executives. But at the moment he seems very much at home in this room of a hundred flashing screens. His eyes -- the eyes of a longtime television producer -- dart from screen to screen, checking the camera angles, checking the next story, checking to see what NBC is opening with on this night in mid-April.

It may be appropriate that a man accustomed to the chaos of the control room has been tapped to run CBS News. The job, it is generally agreed, will require a sharp eye, a steady hand and decisive moves, with little time for reflection. By the time of Mr. Heyward's appointment in January, the problems plaguing the house of Murrow and Cronkite had become so severe that they called for immediate action. Mr. Heyward has responded.

In recent weeks, changes have been announced in several key CBS News programs, including "60 Minutes" (which will introduce new commentators and a revised format tonight at 7), "48 Hours" and "CBS This Morning." At the same time, there has been noticeable fine-tuning of "Evening News." The new president has had varying degrees of input on all of these changes and others yet to come.

"We're attacking on many fronts," says Mr. Heyward, a graying, fast-talking man who tends to engage in five-second chitchat with employees as he strides briskly through the halls, a pager on his belt. He believes that his familiarity with the programs, producers and stars has helped him get off to a quick start. "It would have taken an outsider a year just to learn the culture here," he says. "And we don't have a year."

The urgency at CBS News was brought on by a series of missteps in the last several years, some of which Mr. Heyward's predecessor, Eric Ober, was blamed for by many outside observers. "He made some poor decisions," says Andrew Tyndall, whose weekly newsletter, The Tyndall Report, monitors network news.

Mr. Ober presided over an ill-fated on-air experiment that paired Mr. Rather with a co-anchor, Connie Chung. It was also under his watch that "60 Minutes" suffered a blow to its image when it was prevented by CBS management from running an interview with a former tobacco-company executive because a lawsuit had been threaten'd. (Mr. Ober did not return calls for this article.)

In a larger sense, however, CBS News has been affected by problems that were beyond the news division's control. Viewership for its programs suffered when the network lost eight important affiliate stations and their large local audiences (the stations defected to Fox two years ago). The division also saw its staff cut by almost 40 percent by Laurence A. Tisch, who owned CBS before it was acquired last fall by Westinghouse.

With spending restricted, CBS News couldn't attract high-profile talent, and it still hasn't taken steps into cable television, as have NBC and ABC. "The news division had its hands tied behind its back by Laurence Tisch," says Steve McClellan, the New York bureau chief of Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

All these problems were awaiting Mr. Heyward, 45, when he took over as president. On the bright side, Mr. Heyward started under a new owner that promised to invest in the network. Mr. Heyward quickly took Westinghouse up on that offer, securing additional financing and staffing for "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours."

NOW "60 MINUTES" WILL RUN new episodes year-round and will feature more late-breaking news stories and three new commentators in addition to Andy Rooney: Molly Ivins, P. J. O'Rourke and Stanley Crouch, iconoclastic print journalists from various points on the political spectrum. Meanwhile, "48 Hours," which Mr. Heyward helped introduce as its executive producer in 1988, is expanding coverage to include more than one story per episode.

As for "The CBS Evening News," Mr. Heyward is credited with generally improving the broadcast over the last year. For that program, he is pursuing what he calls a "big-story, big-correspondent strategy," in which he has emphasized more in-depth coverage -- on the Unabomber, for instance -- and given more air time to senior correqpondents like Bob Simon in the Middle East. He is also borrowing correspondents from "60 Minutes" for special reports from time to time. In addition, Mr. Rather says, "he has insisted on an increased emphasis on the writing of the show."

"It is now much stronger journalistically and the best of the three network news shows," says Mr. Tyndall. But in spite of this overhaul, "Evening News" still lags behind ABC and NBC in the ratings.

"Obviously we want the ratings to improve, and I'd like to see some improvement by year's end," says Mr. Heyward. "But 'Evening News' ratings move at a glacial pace."

A more radical change has been implemented at "CBS This Morning," which this summep will switch to a new format combining network and local programming, with stations being given the freedom to mix bits of their own local morning programs with the national program. (The program is also expected to replace its anchors, Harry Smith and Paula Zahn, though no one will say who is to take over.)

Beyond tinkering with the programs, Mr. Heyward seems to have brought more forceful leadership to the news division. He is credited with helping bring about the eventual broadcast of the "60 Minutes" interview with the former tobacco-company executive Jeffrey Wigand in February, three months after the story was shelved. "He had a hand in that," says Don Hewitt, executive producer of "60 Minutes," of a decision that was made by Mr. Heyward, key figures on "60 Minutes" and CBS's lawyers.

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Though the risk of a lawsuit had lessened by the time the segment ran (The Wall Street Journal had published transcripts of a deposition by Mr. Wigand), the broadcast was regarded as important within CBS. "This place was really down because of the tobacco story," says Mr. Hewitt. "By going ahead with the story, it improved morale and got us moving forward again."

More recently, Mr. Heyward made a tough call on the Unabomber story. He decided to hold back a CBS scoop on the suspect's identity at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Then, after sitting on the story for a day, he told the agency he planned to hold it no longer. In the end, CBS News got its scoop (just barely), and the F.B.I. publicly praised the network for acting "in a memorably responsible manner."

Mr. Heyward, who in sp'te of his rapid-fire speaking style manages to be meticulous about saying the right things, plays down his role in the "60 Minutes" tobacco decision, saying: "I don't want to come off as a hero. There were other people involved, too." Similarly, he notes that some of the current changes in "60 Minutes" and other programs were in the works before he became president. And he goes out of his way to defend Mr. Ober, who, he says, "deserves more credit than he's gotten for bringing us intact through a very difficult period."

Mr. Heyward's smooth, politically cautious manner contrasts with the style of Mr. Ober, who was seen by some as combative. This difference, along with Mr. Heyward's track record as a producer, has so far minimized friction between the new president and the producers who are being asked to implement changes. Mr. Ober had risen on the management side of the news division. "Andrew's one of us," says Mr. Fager. Mr. Rather adds, "It makes a difference that he comes from the editorial side."

A graduate of Harvard, Mr. Heyward considered going to law school but ended up working in a low-level job at Channel 5 in New York. Two years later, at the age of 23, he was producing a news program. Mr. Heyward became a producer at "The CBS Evening News" in 1984, then left the program to introduce "48 Hours" and "Eye to Eye With Connie Chung."

He rejoined Mr. Rather in 1994, as the executive producer of "Evening News" and was involved in the decision a year ago to remove Ms. Chung from the anchor desk. "It was hard for me because Connie is a friend," he says. "But it was an experiment that didn't work, and the program was suffering."

Mr. Heyward acknowledges that while his background as a producer makes it natural for him to take part in adjusting programs, there is a potential down side to this. "It could be said that I have a vested interest in the status quo," he says. "There are people here I've worked for, people I feel loyal to."

Mr. Rather, who has worked alongside Mr. Heyward for years, says the new president has not had trouble adjusting to the role of boss. "When he has to impose discipline or exercise command, he's able to do it," he says.

The ascension of Mr. Heyward, along with that of Andrew Lack, the president of NBC News, and Roone Arledge, the head of ABC News, "is a changing of the guard, with producers taking over and bringing network news into the modern age," says Mr. McClellan of Broadcasting and Cable.

Mr. Heyward concurs. "I think it's no accident that all three network news divisions are, for the first time ever, being run by producers," he says. With the greater availability of quality news coverage on cable and local networks, he says, "network news must find ways to provide something distinctive in terms of programs, rather than just presiding over news coverage."

Mr. Heyward must also find a way to attract talent. There are no clear successors for older CBS stars like Mike Wallace, who is 76 years old, and Mr. Rather, 64. There has been talk in the industry that CBS News may try to hire a major star, like Diane Sawyer or Bryant Gumbel.

MR. HEYWARD IS COY on this question. "We've met with all the agents," he says. "If we have the chance to acquire a major name, we will."

But with no cable outlets and just two prime-time news programs it won't be easy. The extent to which he succeeds in attracting talent and developing new programs will depend, in part, on how much support Mr. Heyward gets from the network's new owner.

"I suppose it's possible Westinghouse will quail at the cost of running a news division," he says, "but so far they've said and done all the right things."

"I don't want to be naively optimistic," he adds, "but I think people sense that we have an opportunity to get moving."

A version of this article appears in print on April 28, 1996, on Page 2002036 of the National edition with the headline: TELEVISION;A Bold Old Hand Reshapes CBS News. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe